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From The Intern Corner / / Fixing Forward

It’s been rather dreary weather as of late. So, please, whilst reading this, pretend to be sipping tea in front of a roaring fire in a quaint cottage nestled in the overcast, wet, and rolling hills of England. Accents are indeed necessary, my dear chap (Are you reading in an accent yet?). For some reason, I tend to have little life lessons every week of my life. Naturally, there are those lessons we learn over a period of several months, or maybe it takes a year or two. However, I am talking about the minute, every week lessons (sometimes those are harder than the big ones). I would like to name this week’s obstacle course: fixing forward. Personally, I hunger for moving forward in life. I love new things, new places, new people, and new self. New self is the foundation of all of my risk taking decisions and plans. The journeys and locations are never really the destination; it is always becoming a better (and happier) version of myself that is the goal. I like to ask myself, “If I met myself, would I want to be myself. Would I look up to myself?” With this being said, we often hear “When moving forward, never look back.” This is a somewhat true generalization. I like to think that the “never look back” pertains to not living in the legend of yesterday. However, when it comes to moving forward, I think facing our past is necessary. Sure, never look back, but also don’t run away or try to snuff out your past because, as the old saying goes (or is it more just a cinematic saying?) “Your past will come back to haunt you.” A lot has taken place JUST in the last year of my life. I graduated from high school, moved out, lived in five different places (all different countries, two different continents), traveled to five countries, met people with amazing, enthralling stories, taken a bit of risk here and there, and changed a lot of who I am, and what my dreams are. In all of that, there are mistakes, mess-ups, and “what was I even thinking?” moments. Now, I have obviously moved on, but that doesn’t make everything I have moved on from disappear and erase itself. This week I faced a lot of my past, those skeletons, and those grey areas. But, without literally shaking hands with my past, I would not be able to, one, see how far I have come, and, two, feed the hunger to keep moving forward. So as romantic and whimsical as the future seems sometimes, just remember, dealing with the not so attractive past is the first step to getting there.